The Elegant Lie

…

The sun had not yet risen above the fractured rooftops of Cologne when Carter left his apartment, treading carefully on the rotted wooden staircase that brought him down to ground level. His meeting with Sergeant Galton was scheduled for noon and he needed to make an early start.

Carter headed to a cafe across the street, hoping to find some breakfast. It was a tiny place with only three tables and, after a moment of squinting around for a menu, he arrived at the conclusion that the only things they served were coffee and sausages cooked in wrappings of dough. A woman sat behind the zinc-topped counter, wearing a grey dress with a navy blue apron which matched the colours of the restaurant decor. She had a wide, smooth forehead, shallow-set eyes and thin, unsmiling lips. Even though the cafe had only just opened, she appeared already to have lapsed into the trance-like state Carter remembered from the long summer afternoons of washing dishes at the diner, when he would stare in quiet desperation at the hands on the wall clock as if to nudge time forward by force of will alone.

He ordered a sausage roll and a mug of hot brown liquid, which he realised from its smell was not real coffee at all, but what they called ‘Ersatzkaffee’, made from ground acorns and chicory root. He sipped at it as he made his way over to a table. The drink left a papery, liquorice taste in his mouth. It didn’t taste so bad, but it didn’t taste like coffee, either.

Sitting at a table near the back, Carter swept away some crumbs left by a previous customer and was turning the plate around, examining the sausage roll and wondering whether he should eat it with his hands or with a knife and fork, when a man walked in and ordered a cup of coffee at the counter.

Carter glanced at the customer and the breath caught in his throat when he realised it was Eckberg, his old contact from Bonn station.

Eckberg did not look his way and Carter assumed his presence here must simply be a coincidence.

Eckberg still had the unmistakable look of a foreigner. There was no sign that he had made any attempt at all to blend in with his surroundings. With any luck, thought Carter, he’ll leave without ever realising I was here. And even if he does recognise me, I hope he has been well enough trained not to show it. He kept his head lowered, listening to the clink of crockery as the woman behind the counter fetched a cup, then the rattle of coins on the metal countertop and the almost musical clunk of the cash register opening. He waited for the creak of the door as Eckberg departed, but it never came. Instead, he heard the soft tread of Eckberg’s rubber-soled shoes as the man approached his table.

‘Mind if I sit down?’ he said.

Carter looked up. ‘Do I know you?’ he asked, with a meaningful glance.

‘Relax,’ said Eckberg as he took a seat across the table. ‘The waitress is a friend of ours.’

Carter glanced over to the counter, but the woman had disappeared.

‘How did you find me?’ asked Carter.

‘Dasch has properties all over the city and I figured he’d have put you up in one of them. This is the third place I went to. I got lucky when I spotted you crossing the street to this place. I thought I’d be out there all day.’

‘I didn’t think I would be seeing you around,’ said Carter.

‘Neither did I,’ said Eckberg, ‘but things have changed.’

Carter felt his stomach muscles clench. ‘Is it our friend?’ he asked. ‘Is he OK?’

Eckberg nodded. ‘It’s him. And no he’s not.’ He sipped at the coffee and winced. ‘Jesus,’ he muttered. Then he set the cup down and pushed it to the side.

‘What’s going on?’ asked Carter. Wilby must be dead, he thought. There’s no way he would have sanctioned this meeting.

‘We’re not exactly sure.’

‘Who’s “we”?’

‘The station.’

‘Does that include the chief?’

‘Of course,’ said Eckberg. ‘He’s the one who sent me.’

‘Does our friend even know you are here?’

‘No,’ replied Eckberg, ‘and it needs to stay that way. What I have to tell you is strictly off the record. Do you understand?’

‘I understand what you are saying, but that doesn’t mean I agree.’

Eckberg smiled and sat forward. ‘I’m not asking for your permission. I’m telling you how it has to be. It’s that important. Otherwise, I’d never have come here and you know it.’

Carter remained silent, wondering how bad this was going to get.

‘People are concerned that our friend is becoming unstable,’ said Eckberg.

‘What do you mean by that?’

‘Have you noticed a change in his behaviour lately?’

‘I don’t know him well enough to answer that,’ Carter said evasively.

‘For example, he might have spoken to you about a colleague of ours who died recently.’

‘Maybe.’ He thought of the woman who had washed up on the river bank.

‘Well, he took it very hard,’ said Eckberg. ‘He had his eye on her. There’s no point in denying that. But he’s coming up with a bunch of crazy ideas about what happened. Things which, believe me, just aren’t true. He told me all about it. It’s not just that he’s got a whole conspiracy worked out in his head. To be suspicious is a perfectly healthy attribute in our line of work, but if you’re not careful it can take over your mind. And when you start inventing things to back up your suspicions, that’s when you’ve gone down the rabbit hole.’

‘You mean she wasn’t working for him?’

‘As a secretary, yes! But all that other stuff?’ Eckberg shook his head. ‘That’s in his mind.’

‘If that’s true, then why the hell don’t you pull him out? Or me, for that matter?’

‘It may come to that, in time,’ said Eckberg, ‘but the station chief will only take action if he feels that your specific operation has been compromised. From now on, though, he has authorised you to communicate with me about the details.’

‘How am I supposed to do that?’

Eckberg reached into his shirt pocket, pulled out a pack of Camel cigarettes and slid it across to Carter. ‘Unroll the cigarette in the top right-hand corner of the pack and you’ll find a telephone number where I can be reached.’

Carter tucked the cigarettes into his pocket. ‘I might not see eye to eye with him on everything◦– on most things, actually◦– but I still don’t like going behind his back.’

‘And you think I like being put in this position?’ asked Eckberg. ‘This isn’t what I signed up for, any more than you did. But this problem isn’t going to go away by itself. Pretty soon, if we don’t get this situation under control, people are going to start getting hurt. When that happens, you’ll either be part of the solution or part of the problem. You need to choose, right now, which side you want to be on when the crap hits the fan. What happens next is up to you.’

Carter suddenly felt as if he needed to get out of this place. The air had become thick and unbreathable. His heart seemed to be stumbling in his chest. ‘I have some place to be,’ he said. It was all he could do not to bolt into the street and keep on running until his legs gave out from under him.

‘You go on, then.’

As Carter walked out of the cafe, the first rays of sunlight pooled like molten copper in the puddles left from last night’s rain. His mind was spinning. Even if it was true that Wilby seemed to be losing control, that didn’t make him wrong. The idea of turning on his own control officer was something Carter had never considered. Even now, in spite of all he had heard, and what he’d seen for himself, he could not bring himself to do it. But Carter knew that this might have to change and, if it ever did, to hesitate would be the end of him.

Carter crossed the street and, glancing back towards the cafe, he glimpsed a movement behind the glass.

Eckberg was gone. He must have slipped out the back.

The waitress had reappeared and was eating the remains of Carter’s meal. She stared at him with a mixture of shame and defiance, cheeks bulging with food and pastry crumbs falling from her lips.